Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang?
The current cosmological census is that the universe began 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang. But a legendary physicist says he's found the first evidence of an eternal, cyclic cosmos.
The Big Bang model holds that everything that now comprises the universe was once concentrated in a single point of near-infinite density. Before this singularity exploded and the universe began, there was absolutely nothing - indeed, it's not clear whether one can even use the term "before" in reference to a pre-Big-Bang cosmos, as time itself may not have existed yet. In the current model, the universe began with the Big Bang, underwent cosmic inflation for a fraction of a second, then settled into the much more gradual expansion that is still going on, and likely will end with the universe as an infinitely expanded, featureless cosmos.
Sir Roger Penrose, one of the most renowned physicists of the last fifty years, takes issue with this view. He points out that the universe was apparently born in a very low state of entropy, meaning a very high degree of order initially existed, and this is what made the complex matter we see all around us (and are composed of) possible in the first place. His objection is that the Big Bang model can't explain why such a low entropy state existed, and he believes he has a solution - that the universe is just one of many in a cyclical chain, with each Big Bang starting up a new universe in place of the one before.
How does this help? Well, Penrose posits the end of each universe will involve a return to low entropy. This is because black holes suck in all the matter, energy, and information they encounter, which works to remove entropy from our universe. (Where that entropy might go is another question entirely.) The universe's continued expansion into eventual nothingness causes the black holes themselves to evaporate, which ultimately leaves the universe in a highly ordered state once again, ready to contract into another singularity and set off the next Big Bang.
As alternative theories go, it's not without its merits, but there's no evidence to support it...until now. He says he's found evidence for his ideas in the cosmic microwave background, the microwave radiation that permeates the universe and was thought to have formed 300,000 years after the Big Bang, providing a record of the universe at that far distant time. Penrose and his colleague Vahe Gurzadyan have discovered clear concentric circles within the data, which suggests regions of the radiation have much smaller temperature ranges than elsewhere.
So what does that mean? Penrose believes these circles are windows into the previous universe, spherical ripples left behind by the gravitational effects of colliding black holes in the previous universe. He also says these circles don't work well at all in the current inflationary model, which holds all temperature variations in the CMB should be truly random.
Here's where the fun begins. If the circles are really there and are really doing what Penrose says they're doing, then he's managed to overthrow the standard inflationary model. But there's a long way to go between where we are now and that point, assuming it ever happens.
The inflationary model has become the consensus for a good reason - it's the best explanation we've got for the universe we have now - and so cosmologists will examine any results that appear to disprove it very critically. There are also a couple key assumptions in Penrose's theory, particularly that all particles will lose their mass towards the end of the universe. Right now, we don't know whether that will actually happen - in particular, there's no proof that electrons ever decay.
[via arXiv]
Shutterstock image by Kim D. French
Send an email to Alasdair Wilkins, the author of this post, at alasdair@io9.com.
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Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.Kinda thought that a cyclical universe was a given, seeing how everything else in nature is part of some cycle. Reply
One of the hardest things I can except in science (the study in what we can OBSERVE) is that no one has any idea where all this stuff originally came from. There's no way to observe that. I'm no Bible thumper, but it's a lot easier for me to believe that a god (being, you know, a god) always existed and created this stuff - even if he just created the initial elements for evolution and set things on their way. Science's belief in things like the Big Bang require just as much, if not more, faith than views of intelligent design IMO. Reply
Well, I can't blame Penrose for trying, but he's clearly wrong. I mean, that's certainly what Wilhelm was aiming for with the Compass of Order, but I helped Shion and crew support chaos (entropy made flesh-in-boy-shorts) in his belief in human will. We overthrew the Circle of Zarathustra and all of Wilhelm's other MacGuffins ([tvtropes.org] to stop Eternal Reoccurence.Guy really needs to play Xenosaga and get that all figured out.
(I don't mean to make light of his findings, I just couldn't resist the connection.) Reply
some strange stuff here, i wonder if its even in Man's capacity to understand how it all works. Reply
Curious.I've always thought that the universe was kind of like those marbles at the end of Men in Black. Just self-contained spheres of existence in a bag with other universes, that exist in another, bigger universe.
It's a shame we will never know the answer to these mysteries. Reply
Well, the first thing I always try to remember when dealing with the subject like how the Universe started or how it will end is that we, at best, have slightly more than guesswork.Now, I'm not trying to crap on the work of hundreds of scientists, but I they have little to work with, the data they get is only gathered at one point (Earth) and they are only learning to interpret it. It is all very much a work in progress and the dominant theories are always rapidly changing.
As for this particular theory, I find it plausible, but not for the shaky potential evidence that the man in question may or may not have found, but rather because I find it more likely that our Universe is just one in an endless cycle, rather than us just being in the right place at the right time... Reply
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In response to some of the shit I've seen on this page. I know, I know, I'm adding fuel to the fire. Don't particularly care though, this sort of thing is expected in this type of article. Plus, I need to get those trollish urges out of me, and I find this picture extremely amusing.Anyways, I enjoyed this article, as it was very interesting. Good job.
A cyclical universe is not a new idea...this is just a new way of exploring said idea.For example, one version of Brane theory holds that space/time have always existed as a state between "branes" (or membranes, if you will). As those branes oscillate, they occasionally collide, unleashing massive amounts of energy and matter into the space/time continuum "between" them (a relative term). The most recent version of that collision was our Big Bang...the very beginning of the current universe.
At some point in the future (likely to be trillions of years), another collision will occur, effectively wiping our universe from the slate and creating a new one. (At that point in the future, our universe will a rapidly-expanding spread of black holes, discorporating galaxies, and dead stars...in effect, deceased). A new universe will be born from the ashes of the old as the branes collide again.
But will some bits of our universe survive that cataclysm? Will the ashes of our existence echo in the essence of the new universe?
Could that be what Penrose thinks he's detected...the ashes of a prior existence, stamped into the substance of our current universe?
Hmmm... Reply
I was going to say Io9 is in this direction -----then I read the very last line of the article...
Regardless I do love most of the articles on their site, even if I dont understand half of them Reply
I thought the reapers just exterminated everything and let things start anew before coming back? Reply
Wow. That would be damn interesting. I didn't even know about this, so I'll have to start following some science circles and see if I can find more information on this as it develops. Reply
Saturday, November 20, 2010
io9: Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang?
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